The Republicans literally have not been in power for 5-6 generations. They have no idea how to run the state. They'll have to stop being back-bench bombthrowers and actually DO something. And the Dems can't even comprehend being out of power. I think Mark Taylor is beginning to dimly see what he's in for, hence his ongoing hissy fit.
I was just telling somebody today that if I were the new Repub floor leader I would be over talking to Tom Murphy's staff and trying to hire on one or two of them to show me the ropes.
Of course, if enough Dem senators switch over, it won't be a problem. They already know how things work.
They know the old ways about how things were done. What's the point of getting control if you run things exactly the way the RATS did. In 1994, the abuses of power by the Democrats in the US House were some of the main reasons for supporting a Republican takeover. The Wall Street Journal reported that polls showed the more people watched C-SPAN, the more likely they were to vote for a Republican House candidate in 1994. Congressman Obey from Wisconsin thought the biggest mistake Democrats made was allowing cameras to document how Congress actually works. I think that viewpoint is very cynical.
One rule I hated that the Republicans abolished immediately was voting by proxy in committee. You would see the Democrat chair of the committee vote the proxy votes of other Democrat members who were absent or attending other committee meetings. What this really meant was the real meeting occurred prior to the televised meeting. The Republicans were able to eliminate proxy voting because they started using commercially available off-the-shelf software to schedule committee meetings so they would not conflict with each other.
While there might be teething problems in figuring out how to be the majority party and be responsible for the outcume of legislation, I would much rather Republicans have that problem than the opposite problem which the Democrats have. The Democrats made the mistake in 1995 of electing the same leaders they would have elected if they were still in the majority. They then elected that same leadership in three additional consecutive terms. The Democrats have just failed to retake the House for the fourth consecutive election cycle. They are just now realizing they need to change their leadership. Fortunately for Republicans, they seem to want to really go off the deep end and elect Pelosi as minority leader.